Stomach Flu
by bananafangirl
Summary: Stomach flu is going around Atlantis, one of Lorne's team members has come down with it. He didn't think helping out a sick teammate would end with them in bed together. Can be taken as friendship or preslash maj.lorne/oc random fluff, you're warned. r


**I don't own anything, etc, etc. I'm just torturing the characters and lighting the playground on fire.**

**This is the rambling result of being sick and unable to sleep at two am. You've been warned. **It had been a long, long day. In fact it had been a long week, month, and year as well. Someone had mentioned earlier that they could sleep when they were dead (which might be all too soon in a place like Pegasus), and being dead was looking more and more appealing to Capt. Don Rivers. Especially if it would get rid of the pulsing headache building steadily behind his eyes and stop his stomach from trying to empty itself of contents that didn't exist.

He had just wanted to sleep. In a nice, warm bed rather than on cold ground on an alien planet for the first time in a week. Somewhere that he didn't have to get up every three hours to take a shift at watch. Somewhere he didn't wake up at the slightest sound because it had been engrained so thoroughly into his mind that the Wraith were _everywhere_ by a few paranoid teammates (one of whom was dead now, ironically because he hadn't been paying attention and had walked right into the middle of a party of Wraith). Instead he had ended up curled on the bathroom floor next to the Ancient equivalent of a toilet (surprisingly similar to those of earth, and yet still disturbingly alien) listing all of the reasons why it was a bad idea to just shoot himself and get it the fuck over with. Reason one was that he would have to leave the bathroom to go find his gun, and that wasn't happening anytime soon.

The door chime sounded. Just fucking great. There was no way he was getting up to answer it and his throat was shredded enough that yelling wasn't an option. Whoever was outside would just have to come back later, when he was actually functional. The door chimed again. Don's forehead slammed down against the edge of the toilet bowl. Again. That definitely wasn't helping his headache.

In the next room his radio crackled to life, he could just barely make out the tinny voice coming through and recognize it as Major Lorne, "I know you're in there Rivers, answer the door." _No can do, sir._ "Rivers!" _Shutupshutupshutup._ And, as an afterthought, _please._ "I'm coming in Rivers, you'd better be decent." As if Lorne would care if he wasn't. They'd been on enough missions and in enough showers that it really didn't matter if he was decent or not. He was though. Boxers and an undershirt, both soaked in sweat, clinging to his shaking frame.

He could hear the door swish open and footsteps entering the room. "Rivers, where are you?" Lorne sounded completely confused. Couldn't blame the guy, he'd left his room in a bit of a hurry. The sheets were on the floor in a tangled mess, his book was somewhere halfway across the room and probably still open, and he'd knocked down the bedside table in his mad dash to the bathroom. His knee was going to be a pretty painting in the morning thanks to that one.

"In here, sir." Don managed weakly.

"You don't sound so great." The footsteps were nearing the bathroom. A muffled curse and a clatter as something hit the floor. "Are you alright?"

"Sick. And contemplating suicide by toilet drowning." He grunted, propping himself up a little straighter and dragging the back of a hand across his mouth as if to make himself look more presentable. It did nothing, he still looked like death. "Stay outside, you don't want whatever I have."

Lorne's head poked around the open bathroom door and his face twisted with a sympathetic frown at the sight of the other man. "Ah, so you've got that flu that's going around. Should've told someone."

"Guess I must." He shifted to look up at his CO, groaning as bruises still fresh from their last mission dragged across the floor. "An' whatever it is, you don't want it. So you might want to go."

Despite Don's warnings Lorne stepped into the bathroom, moving to lean against the counter. "I think I'll take the risk. I've already been exposed anyways, Davis got it, ran off in the middle of a game of poker to get sick. Between you and me, I think he just wanted to avoid his inevitable and crushing defeat."

Don managed a weak chuckle to match Lorne's quiet laughter at his own joke, but it was cut off when his stomach decided to rebel again. He buckled over the toilet but there was nothing left to come up. His body just shook and shuddered, muscles contracting in painful ways. Someone might as well have been running sandpaper down the back of his throat. The world was blurring around the edges. And soothing hands were rubbing circles on his back, a calm voice whispering soft reassurances in his ear. There was something very wrong about that.

Lorne didn't even think before he had crossed the small bathroom and rested his hands on Don's shoulders supportively, rubbing gently. Whispers dropped from his lips, nonsense about how everything was alright. As if Don was a child who needed to hear those sorts of things. It was habit though, what he had done when his sister was small and sick, and on the few occasions he'd had to deal with babysitting sick nieces, nephews, and cousins.

When Don pushed himself away from the toilet with a groan of unintelligible curses Lorne kept hold of his shoulders, let the other man slump back against his legs. "I really fucking hate this galaxy." Don said after a few moments of almost silence, the only noise the sound of the toilet flushing when one of them thought at it.

"The Doc says it's just an Earth stomach bug." Lorne chuckled, patting the other man on the back. A wince and groan told him he'd hit one of many bruises.

"I still hate this galaxy." Don mumbled, shifting as if trying to get comfortable. The hard floor didn't get any softer under his rear and Lorne's calves didn't yield a bit against his back. "It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't so fucking tired." When he was tired, he swore. When he was sick, he swore. The result of both combined was that there was probably going to be at least one curse in every other sentence for the next week.

"Why don't we get you into bed then?"

"Don't think my goddamn legs will hold me." He had been planning on spending the night on the bathroom floor, just incase, but bed sounded so very tempting at that moment.

"I'll help, come on." Lorne slipped his hands under Don's arms and lifted with surprising ease. "You need to eat more."

Don's pale face turned slightly green, "Please don't mention food right now."

"Ah, yeah, sorry." It was fairly easy to arrange Don's arm across his shoulders, slip an arm around his waist, and take most of the other man's weight. Much easier than maneuvering the man when he was unconscious, which he'd done more than enough times. All Don had to do was balance himself, Lorne could do the rest.

With more than a little cursing and slipping the two men managed to get out into the bedroom and cross most of the messy floor without breaking their necks. It was two feet away from the bed that Lorne's foot caught on a discarded book. They pitched forward, Don unable to catch them on his shaking legs. At least it was a soft surface to land on.

For a few moments they were a tangle of thrashing, cursing limbs lying atop the bed. Lorne finally untangled himself and rolled away. They looked at each other for a moment, shocked. Then both men burst out laughing. Well, Lorne laughed, Don made a choked noise that didn't hurt his throat quite so much. "Thanks, sir." He managed when he regained his breath.

"How many times do I have to tell you that it's Evan?" Lorne asked, pushing himself off of the bed.

"At least a few more." It was a habit ingrained in his brain even before he joined the Air Force, you called people you respected ma'am or sir if they were older than you. That was just the way the world worked for him.

Lorne sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not going to argue with you tonight. Winning wouldn't be fair when you're so miserable. Get some sleep." As Don crawled up the bed to collapse against the pillow Lorne bent and grabbed up the sheets that had been tossed on the floor, throwing them back on the bed.

"That is an order I can definitely follow." The words were slurred, he was already half asleep, eyes drifting shut. Lorne turned towards the door. "Hey, sir?"

"Yeah, Rivers?"

"Stay?" The question would have been ridiculous if he had been fully conscious. Hell, it was ridiculous when he was barely awake and his brain was scrambled with sickness. Don didn't care. He didn't want to be alone. It had been…two weeks now since he had slept without four teammates breathing steadily beside him. That had been in a hut in a village a solar system away, but he had gotten used to it. It would be odd sleeping alone again. Especially as out of it as he was.

Lorne paused, caught between shock and confusion, before shrugging. It wasn't as if they hadn't slept crushed shoulder to shoulder before. Hell, they had even shared a bed before. More than once. Because the mission demanded it. But what harm could humoring a miserable teammate do? "Fine." He sighed, dropping his jacket on a nearby chair. It was followed by his thigh holster and, after a moment's though, his radio. Awkwardly he sat on the edge of the bed, eying the other man. There wasn't much room.

"Thanks." Don scooted over, patting the space beside him. With a resigned sigh Lorne toed off his boots and settled into the small space. It took a few moments of shifting and adjusting, tossing covers back and forth and complaining about elbows in ribs and the press of bruised skin, but they managed to settle into something that was halfway comfortable and not too compromising.

Don smelled vaguely of sickness and sweat and his hair was damp where it stuck to Lorne's throat, his head tucked under his CO's chin. Lorne could make a whole long list of worse things Don could smell like, most of which he had at some point.

Lorne hadn't planned on falling asleep. He had, in fact, only planned on staying until Don as well and truly asleep. He found himself drifting off anyways. The next thing he remembered was waking up to the sound of someone retching in a bed not his own in a room that looked like a bomb had gone off inside of it. It was going to be a very long night.

It took a lot of control not to get up, dress, and bolt for the door. Instead he shuffled towards the bathroom for a repeat of reassuring words and soothing hands. He felt like he was babysitting his six year old sister who had just come down with the flu again. But he had agreed, and so he stayed. For the whole damn night and a good chunk of the morning. Yeah, he really fucking hated this galaxy too. Sometimes.

**Reviiiiiiiiew. It makes me all happy inside. And making the sick author happy inside is a nice thing to do. Also, I'm considering continuing this in some way. Possibly in explanation of all the times they've had to share a bed on missions before. could go bad places with that Having opinions on that idea would be nice.**


End file.
